To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
This stylish, aerodynamic Yakima roof rack gives you the space to carry gear on your vehicle. Rubber strips in the top channels push down to load carriers or accessories - no need to trim. Installs on your vehicle's naked roof.
Features:
Specs:
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hi I'm Matt with etrailer. Today we're gonna be talking about the Yakima roof rack on our 2020 Ford F-150. So this would be a great option if you're looking for something that one is gonna look nice on top of your roof, but you can also get this paired up with any of your other Yakima accessories. So, let's check it out. Now there's a lot of benefits to a roof rack, especially on a truck. So even though we do have that bed, if we have anything that's extra long, sometimes it doesn't wanna fit back there very well, especially if we have a camper shell.
So that's gonna be anything like lumber or anything like a kayak. This is gonna be a much better alternative for you. Now, of course, you could go with a trailer behind you, but the issue with that is that's gonna take up a lot of space. So if you're trying to get into tight areas, this will be the better option. Now, what stands out about the Yakima one besides it being able to work really well with the Yakima accessories is, it's giving us a really good fitment on top of our roof, which we can check out now.
So, let's start with the very top, with the crossbar. So, this is gonna be a 60 inch crossbar, so that's plenty of space to put your accessories here. And speaking of putting your accessories on here, we are gonna have this T channel at the very top with this built-in weather strip. So, that's gonna make it really easy to put those T channel accessories on here just in case a clamp-on accessory is gonna be the best option for you that day. And right beneath that, we're gonna have our towers.
These caps do come off. You can tell there's a lot of hardware underneath here. There's a lot of thought that goes into this design. But what's the need about these towers is they are lockable. So when they get them right outta the box, they're just gonna have a plastic core there.
That's designed for when you do have those other Yakima accessories. If you wanna get everything keyed alike, you can just swap 'em out so you only have to carry one keys instead of a bunch of keys. And underneath there, take this off so we can get a better look, we're gonna have that drill fit kit. So as you can tell, we have this rubber pad on the bottom that contours around your roof. And we're gonna have this hook that grabs into the inner of your door. And this looks really good for me because I'm not seeing any type of gaps. Nothing looks uneven and that's what we want with a roof rack. 'Cause if it doesn't look very good, it won't be as stable and it might create some wind noise. Now, let's get a couple measurements to see how it's fitting up here. So let's come to the edge of our crossbar and we have a little bit of overhang, a little bit over 2 inches of space here. So if you have anything like skis, a ski carrier, this will be enough room for it. But if you have anything like, let's say, your kayak carrier, you're not gonna be using this T channel at the very top of here, then it's probably not gonna have enough room to sit at the very edge. But the nice thing about the Yakima design is there's gonna be one continuous channel underneath here. So, with this design, you can actually upgrade or change to a wider crossbar length. So, if you do have anything like a larger item like a kayak carrier, it'll fit at the very edge just fine. And now for the space underneath, we're gonna have about 2 1/2 inches. So that's really not too bad at all, plenty of room for your clamps to sit. If you have some type of sunroof on your truck though, and if that spans up, it could make contact with them. So, just watch out for that. And then for the total height, this is gonna be sitting, that's gonna be about 3 1/2 inches, which is pretty low profile when we compare it to a lot of other roof racks out there. And as for the total distance between your crossbars, we are gonna have a spread of 32 inches, front of one crossbar, front of another one, which is a a good distance to have 'cause that's gonna be compatible with most gear out there. Now, another thing you want to make sure of is the weight capacity 'cause these are gonna be pretty sturdy, but what I'd recommend doing is just checking what your roof is rated for, then going from the lowest rated component just so you don't damage anything. Now, in my opinion, this is gonna be a pretty good option for you. Now, we have a ton of different options. One that I really like is gonna be the Thule roof rack. What I like about that one is it's just a little bit more of a simple design, so it's easy to put up here, and it just looks a little bit nicer in my opinion. But if you already have some Yakima accessories or if you want to change these down the road to a wider crossbar, then I'd probably go with these instead. And if you do just have to go with them, let us know how it working for you in either a comment or review and what type of gear you're putting on top of them. But with that said, I can show you how to put these on now. All right, so to start off the installation, I recommend just laying all of your parts out. You notice I'm missing a couple pieces. That's 'cause I already have my front crossbars installed. It's gonna be the same process. Now, you might have a couple different measurements, but we'll talk about those measurements when we get there. So right now, I'm gonna have my crossbar in front of me. I'm gonna have the towers, the fit kits that's gonna comprise of the bases and the clamps. And I'm gonna have this tool. I also recommend having a tape measure on hand just so you can make sure everything's nice and even. But before we get into that, let's start with this crossbar. So, what I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna flip this upside down and I'm gonna take off one of these end caps by peeling up at the edge of it and pushing out. Sometimes, you might have to wiggle a little bit and we'll grab our towers. So, you wanna make sure these blocks in here are loosely installed so you can move it around a bit and it goes into this channel fairly easy. The first one I'm gonna put on, it's gonna be in this orientation with all the hardware facing to my right side. Just like that. Now you might have to, there you go, move around a bit. Drag it there. Same thing for the other one, only it's gonna face the opposite direction. So, the hardware facing the outside of the inside of the crossbars. And with it on there, we'll just grab our end cap again and slap it back on. Now, you're gonna want your instructions for this next part. They're gonna give you a couple measurements and it's gonna depend on what stage you're at in the installation process. So for the first one, I recommend starting with your front crossbar. That's gonna use your M1 measurement and that's gonna be the distance from the front of one tower to the front of another one. For your rear crossbar, that's gonna use the M3 measurement. So reference those instructions, that'll give you that exact number. And then, instead of grabbing a tape measure, we can actually use this ruler on the bottom of this crossbar and we'll just move this so the front of it lines up with one of those numbers. Make sure you do that in both sides. Now when these towers are in the right spots, we can tighten 'em down. But before we actually tighten these two bolts down, there are gonna be certain settings for those as well. So, starting with this one right here, it's either gonna be your P1 or P2, depending if you have the front crossbar. Front crossbar is gonna be P1. Rear crossbar is gonna be P2. Same thing for the T1 and T2. So, P1 is just gonna be your pitch. And if you find this old bolt right here, you're gonna notice there's three lines here. We're gonna make sure this lines up to the correct one. One's gonna be A, B, and C. In my case today, I'm gonna tighten it down to B, that's gonna be the center one. If you need to adjust it any more, you're gonna have to just pivot it by pushing or pulling on it in your direction. Once that one's tightened down fully, you're gonna hear a click from that tool. Then, you'll just grab this base that comes with your kit. If this bottom piece isn't already put on, you just line up the contours of either one of them and they'll snap together. And when we do that, there's gonna an air on the bottom of it. Make sure that air is facing out, lining up with this metal bar. This will clamp into place just like that. And this one actually will let you adjust that T. So, once I have it adjusted to what my setting is, which in my case today is gonna be 2, we're tighten that down, same thing until this clicks into place. And then, we're gonna repeat that same process on the other side. And now we can put this on top of our roof. So when we do that, you wanna make sure it's in the right orientation. So, we want the thicker side facing forward, thinner side facing behind us. So, we're just gonna roughly put this on. It doesn't have to be perfect at this moment. And this is a little bit high up. So if you need a friend to help you out, it's not a bad idea. There we have it. Now, the way you're gonna install the front crossbar and kind of walk you through that process now, or at least finding the measurement for it, is in your instructions, you're gonna have the M2 measurement. The M2 measurement is gonna be the distance from the top of your windshield to the very front of this crossbar or the tower that is. Make sure you get that on both sides and it's even. Then, you move on to the next step. And then, the distance from crossbar one to crossbar two is gonna be your M4 measurement. The way you get that is you measure from the front of that tower to the front of this one, make sure that it's the same on either side, and then you're good to go. And once we got those measurements, just make sure it's grabbing on to your roof correctly, like that as you're gonna line up and contour to this edge. Now that we've done that, we can start putting on our clamps. It's gonna be the same process for either one of these. So, I'm just gonna open up this access door here and we're gonna be mainly working with two bolts. So, what I'd like to start off with is this one right here where we just open up that access door. We're gonna stick that clamp right underneath there and just make sure those tabs grab onto it. Now, this is really hard to do. You find you don't have enough room to put this clamp into place. You're probably just gonna have to loosen up both of these bolts. Once you do that, then when it come to the one at the top here, and we're gonna tighten this down and that's gonna lower that clamp as you can see here until it makes slight contact. Then, we'll go to this one and we'll bring it up until it fully wraps around our door frame. We don't wanna fully tighten this down at the moment, just loosely. Once you do that, we can repeat that on the other side. And then, we'll come back and forth slowly tightening this down until it fully tightens into place. And the way you'll be able to tell if this is fully tightened down is if you hear that click, just make sure they both do that, you're good to go. Close that access door and put it on end caps. Once you get that on both sides, then that pretty much does it. Oh, when you put those end caps on, start by hooking it in first, and then press, and you hear a click. Once we get that on all four corners, give it a good little shake test, make sure it's not going anywhere, and then you can take it out for a ride. If you guys have any other questions, let us know here at etrailer. And again, I'm Matt and thanks to watching.
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